


Carebears for Daredevils

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Claire-centric, Coda, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 02:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda to Episode 6, aka, the one where Claire and Foggy and Karen actually have a freaking conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carebears for Daredevils

Being back in the hospital was better than being alone in someone else’s house. A vague guilt hovered over her as Claire stripped from her regular clothes and pulled on her blue scrubs because too many people had been hurt and there weren’t enough nurses or doctors or beds. 

But still, it gave her something to focus on. It gave her something to do. Something that she could complete, something she could fix, something that she could control, even if it was something small and tiny and insignificant.

Her hands didn’t shake as she sutured Mrs. Cardenas forehead, as she murmured soothing words, apologized for the hurt, assured her she would get better, and that soon it would be good as new.

When Mrs. Cardenas was in a bed, she turned her attention to the next patient. She tried not to think about the phone call with Matt too much–there was too much to be done, too many people needed her.

But she did think about it, in the in between times when she was tearing protective wrap from surgical instruments, when she strung her suture needle with thread.

In the background, like white noise of a lost channel, she heard the Russian screaming, and she didn’t feel bad even though the words do no harm intoned through her like a prayer. 

And then his second call. She didn’t know.

Confusion squirmed its way into her heart and she leaned against the wall, her skull pressed against its cool hardness as she closed her eyes and breathed, scraping a scant five minutes to just catch her breath. 

She shook herself. There was work to do, and she went to check up on Mrs. Cardenas. She had been joined by her friends and she was sleeping. More patients had joined her in the small room–a blonde who kept looking at her phone and her companion–someone whom she heard the blonde call Foggy.

“How are we doing?” she asked.

“You could tell me I’m free to go,” Foggy said. 

“Are you?” She looked at the bandage plastered against his side skeptically. 

“I need to find my friend but Karen here–” and he gestured vaguely to the blonde– “won’t let me leave. She’s stronger than she looks, believe me. But you can discharge me. If it’s doctor’s orders who could argue with that? Not even me, and I’m a lawyer!”

Claire almost laughed. “And why would I want to discharge you when you are so clearly injured?” It looked like shrapnel from one of the blasts–he wouldn’t be going anywhere, at least not for tonight. 

“Because I have to find my friend.” He said it so seriously. 

Claire examined his wound, to make sure it hadn’t started bleeding again. “Tell me about your friend,” she said. 

Foggy’s eyes closed briefly, and he took a labored breath. 

“His name’s Matt,” Karen said, her voice soft. Her eyes were rimmed pink from tears. “And he’s blind.”

Claire pretended to be very busy with Foggy’s chart, which printed his full name to be Franklin Nelson. Matt was a common name, after all. There were probably lots of blind people named Matt in the city. It was a big city, after all. 

“Have you seen him? I mean, I know you must see a lot of people, but….have you seen him?” Karen’s eyes were big and pleading as she showed Claire a picture of Matt on her cell phone.

He looked much the same as when Claire had seen him earlier that morning, making her breakfast. She wondered if the window he was leaning beside was his law offices. Claire bit her lip. She didn’t know these people–she only knew Matt, and only by name recently. She had no idea who these people were to him–just that they looked to be his friends, and that they were worried about him, and that they were afraid for him. 

Maybe, for all she knew, this was the only family Matt had.

She knew so little about him. Just that he had a job, that he had saved her and that, in some ways, he also frightened her and that she was scared for him–scared of who he could be, what he could do.

She remembered their time together on the rooftop. 

What should she say? That he was in the middle of it right now? That the cops were after him? That he was going up against a man who had so much power he could control the whole city? That she had no idea if they would meet again? That their latest conversation wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence about success or even just getting out of their alive?

Was this her secret to tell? He had confessed it to her–not out of choice, but out of necessity–then, only later, out of trust. 

She forced herself to shake her head, and Karen nodded, her face doing that downturned tilt as she put her phone back in her purse. 

“I’m sure he can take care of himself,” Claire said, her voice soft as she put Foggy’s chart away at the foot of the bed. That, at least, was not a lie.

Karen smiled gratefully in the same kind of way that acknowledged that Claire meant well but that she was probably wrong.

Claire wondered how many times they had called him. Wondered how he could keep this from them, but maybe it made sense, as she reached for some more bandages on a top shelf and felt the twinge in her shoulders, the stitches that Matt had done earlier that morning threatening to come undone. 

Karen turned up the volume on the news when they cut again to speculations of what must be happening. There was Matt–pixelated and dressed in black and unrecognizable if you didn’t already know. Karen’s eyes were wet. Foggy was out. 

Claire left after making sure that they would be fine–physically at least. The old woman sitting beside Mrs. Cardenas smelled faintly of cigars, and it reminded Claire of the time she had smoked, before she had become a nurse, and her fingers itched for a cigarette even though she had quit years ago. 

Claire splashed water on her face from the drinking fountain and then took a long drink before pulling on a new pair of gloves, looking at a new set of wounds, and filling out a new chart.


End file.
